


All Broken

by imaginary_golux



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:46:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the War, everyone is broken.  Hermione is just better at hiding her scars.  Written for Porn Battle XIII.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Broken

Hermione knows, in the back of her mind, that keeping slaves is wrong. But the war broke her, as it broke them all – Harry, with his green eyes dimmed forever and his bitter reliance on Draco for his sight; Ron, with one leg off at the knee and no humor in his eyes; Draco, all arrogance gone, trailing after Harry like a lost puppy because no one else will smile at him at all. It is not surprising that the war broke Hermione, too – though her wounds are not visible. Outwardly, she smiles, speaks kindly to the injured, interprets Harry’s scowls and Ron’s bitter jokes into well-formed phrases that the newspapers can print, and never flinches when the gathered crowds call out her name.

They do not know what she keeps in Grimmauld Place, that old and haunted wreck (for Harry gave it to her when she asked, and never questioned, never wanted to) – they do not know the bloodstains on the stone floors, that even house-elves could not scrub away. They do not see the kneeling woman who grovels at her feet when she comes home, who begs and begs in a broken voice for a word, a touch, a bite of food.

No one asked where Bellatrix went, you see. Her robes were found, all drenched with blood, near the werewolves’ camp, at the end of the war; of course, said all who cared, she was devoured. Good riddance. Hermione knows better. Hermione remembers the day when she found Bellatrix: equal and opposite, the woman who stood at the Dark Lord’s side as Hermione did at Harry’s. But Bellatrix did not expect Dark curses from a Muggle-born girl, as Hermione had guessed; Bellatrix fell, and Hermione bound her.

Hermione knows that what she is doing is wrong; knows that the last person to whom Bellatrix knelt, the last person she begged for mercy and for more in the same breath, the last person she loved because they _owned_ her – was Voldemort. But he is ashes now, and Bellatrix is hers, hers to hurt and hers to heal, hers to break and to put back together. And there is this: she is kinder than Voldemort, a little. Oh, Bellatrix bleeds for her, to be sure, spills out red life upon the floor and begs and weeps and screams for her; but when Hermione has had her fill, she heals her captive, slides fingers slick with Bellatrix’s blood between her legs and makes Bellatrix scream again in pleasure, feeds her and cleans her and covers her with a blanket, and promises to come back soon.

She always comes back. If Bellatrix bleeds enough, perhaps Hermione will heal.


End file.
